Slashdot Mirror
Rowing the Pond Again
Gudlyf writes "Anne Quéméré, a French woman who had previously rowed across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain to the West Indian island of Guadeloupe, is currently on her way to doing it again, only this time in the opposite direction. This season's challenge will take Anne 2700 nautical miles, from Chatham, Cape Cod (USA) to Brittany (France), her native land. She hopes to make it in less than 90 days. Is it just me, or does the giant fish on her boat scream 'shark bait' to you?"
Wouldn't it have just been easier to buy an airline ticket?
I'm all for exercise and all but geeze!
http://slashome.web1000.com
She has to get back, doesn't she?
If she had the money to get a plane ticket, she wouldn't have made it the first time.
In my day we had to kayak through the Pacific just to buy some foie gras... upstream BOTH WAYS.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
We have to do something about the oil companies, this poor women obviously can't afford gas either. Greedy bastards!
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
Shark-Bait HOO-HAH-HAH
Extraordinary Vacations. Exceptional Prices
Got curious and browsed that images (images directory. Some odd stuff, but there's also a small map showing (at least vaguely) the intended journey.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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A. i dont even have a boat you insensitive clod
:)
B. all your oars are belong to us
C. in soviet russia the boat rows you
D.
1. row row row your boat
2. do it again
3. ???
4. profit!!
E. D'OH!
There, I think that about covers it
Actually sharks CAN see prey... that is why they often mistake divers and surfers in dark wetsuits for seals. They do have bad eyesight but can certainly see and identify prey.
Geek n.
A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.
A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
But then it could also be:
A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.
I mean how many times do you see "sex with a mare" around here??
Here's her website. It's entirely in French, but you can see pictures of her and the boat on the photo page.
Would you have the balls to attack a woman with the arms to row across the Atlantic? I wouldn't...
Similarly, the rest of the planet cannot understand the mind-numbing singlemindedness needed to slog through the hell that is a Gentoo installation.
Different strokes...
Plus, there's all sorts of technology involved -- GPS, satellite phone, and the materials and construction of the boat itself.
But what it really comes down to is clearly illustrated in this bit from the article:Now if that's not geeky, I dunno what is.
She's navigating mainly by GPS
She has a custom made boat (physics, specialized transportation design)
She expects to lose 30 pounds (lots of nerds need to lose weight / Physical effects of long term physical stress is a good topic of scientific discussion)
Quit flapping your bitching hole.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Exactly. This is, like, all athletic and--how you say?--"outsidish?" no, no. i mean, "out of the doors?" oh yes, "outdoorsy." i do not know of this out of the doors activities of which they write...what with the..the...the sweating. And the exerting.
(and before some pumped up jock wannabe tries to make me seriously believe a true nerd can also be mr. macho athlete guy, lemme say a) we're all very proud of you and b) please go crow on some less nerdly site. you are far too cool for us.)
The US Coast Gaurd announced today that they picked up a determined French refugee in a rowboat off the coast of Massachusetts. She has been taken to an undisclosed location for indefinite detention.
Unknown host pong.
Just imagine a Bay-o-watch cluster of these...
I'm here all week, folks.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
Man, I wish I had the balls to do this. Boats are so cool. Well, boats without motors, anyway. In fact, things built by people with their own hands designed to do something crazy are cool in general. I'd love to build my own sailboat and sail from the southern tip of Japan to the Philippines. That's not even a huge distance, and I'm still too chicken to do it... storms scare me.
As for all you idiots making "What's this doing on Slashdot?" comments, what the hell? You guys are worse than those stupid jocks in HS who used to try to pigeonhole us into the glasses-wearing computer nerd category. Worse because you're doing it to yourselves. People aren't two-dimensional (I mean this figuratively, smart ass) and this includes even you. Lots of nerds like sports. It's just that we often like non-standard ones, like martial arts, fencing, bowling, sailing, whatever. But even if it were some "lame" sport like baseball or football, a true geek could find a way to make it geeky. That you can't speaks to your lack of imagination, nothing else.
Thank you, drive through.
I happen to think it's a fantastic thing.
There's no real "why" of why anyone would willingly climb Everest, go to Antarctica, walk across a desert, play any contact sport, play golf, walk up the stairs to the office and not take the elevator.
All of those things are more prone to injury, take longer, are a "waste" of time. But none of that is the point. All of those things are terrific fun - even walking up the stairs gives you a nice glow just before you hit the airconditioning for 8 hours.
Rowing across the Atlantic Ocean? Imagine the isolation, the memories, the weather you'd see, the sense of having conquered yourself you would feel for the rest of your life.
She's not hurting anyone or anything. And she may actually make observations worth listening to.
My response? Bravo!
Net effect is zero.
Which makes her even with all of us who didn't row at all.
it'd be like getting a handjob from popeye
think about it
Besides, it is Hollywood myth that shark can be dangerous. You may think that shark could mistake swimmer for baby seal, or find your fagile torso to be a tasty meal for the shark. You may also think your weak chemoelectric field in your muscle and nerve could be detected, and shark would take big bite out of you before figures out you are not good for food for it.
This is all giant myth. Shark can make good friendship and companion for any man, woman, or youung child who swim in water's ocean.
I suggest you read Slashdot
You mean that the 55 unprovoked shark attacks in 2003 (source) weren't dangerous?
Shark can make good friendship and companion for any man, woman, or youung child who swim in water's ocean.
Yes, just last month I took my eight year old niece to the aquarium and dropped her into the great white shark tank. You should have seen the wonderful fun playing around they both did. You'd think my niece would have been tired swimming after the shark for half an hour, but you shouldn't underestimate the determination of a child who wants her right leg back.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Really need to mention Raphaela Legouvella here as she recently arived in Tahiti on a windsufer. She already crossed the atlantic back in 2000. http://www.raphaela-legouvello.com/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3236899.st m
As to whether this should be on /. windsurfing seems a more apropriate geek sport to me than rowing (obvoulsy I'm biased on this). Hi tech construction, always pushing the speed records, and it's 95% technique and only 5% fitness.
Her windsurfer looks biger than your average sailing boat but it was built with the help of the european space agency.
Somehow, compared to the 32,480 deaths in MVAs (car/SUV/truck crashes), 55 shark attacks just doesn't seem very significant (source). The fact is, compared to the driving we do every day, Sharks aren't particularly dangerous.
"Umm...right. Would you remind repeating that to the family of the woman killed by the Great White not 5 miles from where I live? Giant myth my ass. Some things have been exaggerated, yes, but understating the danger can be just as bad, for both humans and sharks."
It's a giant myth because, of the millions of people who could potentially interact with Sharks each year, there are few reported incidents (55 in 2003).
You could make the statement:
"Umm...right. Would you remind repeating that to the family of the woman killed by TWA 800 5 miles from where I live? Giant myth my ass. Some things have been exaggerated, yes, but understating the danger can be just as bad."
The fact that you know someone who has died in an air crash *does not* make air travel unsafe. The fact is, there really isn't any risk to understimate. The risk is, quite frankly, statistically insignifigant. That's like saying that you should "consider the risk" before eating food because people die from foodborne illness each year (9,000 in the USA alone - 180 times greater than Shark-related deaths).
We can make a sob story out of anything, but the fact is that the only way to assess the risk of an activity is to look at statistics. The statistics say that the danger is minimal. There's nothing to understimate because there is virtually no danger whatsoever.
32,480 highway deaths vs. 55 shark attacks? How "significant" _are_ the shark attacks? It appears that in Florida the shark attacks actually _are_ significant - bear with me while I do some ball-park estimating.
Rough Facts:
(1) There are approximately 16 million people in Florida.
(2) 31 of the 55 shark attacks were in florida (see grandparent post).
(3) In 2002 there were 3132 highway deaths in Florida. (source)
(4)The average american adult spends 101 minutes per day driving.(source)
(5)The average american spends 19 minutes per day engaged in "leisure exercise.(source)
*for our purposes, lets pretend that (4) and (5) apply to the population of Florida as well.
Approximations/Guesses:
Let's pretend that in Florida 5% of the leisure exercise that goes on is swimming, and that a 20% of that swimming is done in the ocean as opposed to pools, lakes, etc.
Assumptions:
(6) 1/20 of all leisure exercise in Florida is swimming.
(7) 1/5 of all swimming is done in the ocean (shark territory).
With a Little Algebra,
Using (1),(3), and (4),
There are about 5.3e-9 (5.3*10^-9) deaths per driving minute in Florida. Or inversely 188 million minutes of driving time occur per highway death.
Using (1),(2),(5),(6), and (7),
There are about 2.8e-08 shark attacks per ocean-swimming minute. Or inversely 36 million minutes of ocean-swimming time occur per shark attack.
But wait! That means per minute of activity, in Florida, you are more likely to be attacked by a shark than die in a highway accident, if the facts, assumptions, and generalizations used are correct.
Alright so that sounds impossible - let's change our guesses. What if 20% of all leisure exercise is swimming (a ridiculously high estimate), and what if a full 1/2 of all swimming is done in the ocean. Then by the same calculations there are 2.8e-9 deaths per ocean-swimming minute. Even with these very high estimates the per-minute chances of shark attack are within a single order of magnitude to highway deaths.
Yes, I have made some unsupported generalizations and some unsupported guesses, but even so I think it is safe to say that in florida the statistics are so "lopsided" (32,480 highway deaths vs. 31 shark attacks) not because swimming is any less dangerous than driving (in terms of shark attacks vs. fatal accidents), but because people just drive a whole lot more than they swim.
If you don't consider that, then eating highly radioactive material will seem like a safe activity - just because nobody does that. In reality of course, doing that would be quite risky.
Looking at the US, very large numbers of people are involved with cars on a daily basis, only a small percentage go swimming in the ocean every day. How useful is it really to know that there were no shark-related incidents in Minnesota this year?